Honoring Grandparents Today and Every Day

This Grandparents’ Day, we want to honor the role that grandparents play in their families. For so many among us, grandparents are special and are often some of the first people we have memories of reading with. Today, Tandem’s Director of Programs, Sara Rizik-Baer, shares with us a story about her grandparents and values they instilled in her.

An Immigrant Story

Both sets of my grandparents immigrated here to escape totalitarian regimes in both Germany and the Dominican Republic.  On my Dominican side (my father’s side), my grandparents along with my father and uncle, left to escape  Rafael Lenoidas Trujillo, one of the most brutal dictators in the history of Latin America. On my German-Jewish side (my mother’s side), my great grandparents had the amazing foresight to escape Nazi Germany when Hitler was elected. Obtaining some of the last visas available, they were able to leave and landed in Ohio and New York respectively.

Despite (or maybe because of these experiences), they knew the importance of  education and literacy. This is the one thing no one can take away from you, no matter how brutal a government is. Because of their experiences, this was an important value taught to my brother and I.  My German-Jewish grandparents never let a birthday or holiday go by without gifting us a delicious book to devour. Afternoons spent at their house consisted of the entire family reading books, magazines, and newspapers around the living room. Television was a luxury and something that was banished to the basement. This was coupled with memories of walking into my Dominican grandparents bedroom to find them reading newspapers and magazines in Spanish. I hoped that one day I too could decipher the news from Latin America and participate in their conversations.

I am forever grateful to the values instilled in me from my grandparents. The fight for freedom from oppression is always deep within me. Hearing their stories and continuously reading and learning has always been and will remain the foundation for that fight.